Forgotten Americans

Written by an honored biographer and an award-winning poet, this book shines a light on overlooked figures. Traditional histories have often neglected these people, for many reasons. Some were on the losing side of a conflict, such as Tecumseh, who spent years trying to unite Indian nations against white settlers. Others worked behind the scenes, like Annie Turner Wittenmyer, who took charge of supplying Union hospitals in the West during the Civil War. And some we disregard because their actions now seem unsavory, as with the once-celebrated "Indian slayer" Tom Quick. These lively stories also reveal little-known facets of the famous: Benjamin Franklin's disinherited son, Thomas Jefferson's secret politicking, and how Mary Todd Lincoln's confinement to a mental hospital became a public issue. From early settlements to the close of the nineteenth century, the brief biographies in Forgotten Americans fill out our knowledge of the nation's past.